


if i let you go of your hand, you’ll fly away, you’ll shatter

by sugodemic



Category: K-pop, 방탄소년단 | Bangtan Boys | BTS
Genre: Abusive Parents, Alternate Universe, Angst, Break Up, Christmas, Christmas Party, Domestic, Drinking, Everyone else is pretty drunk and stupid, Getting Back Together, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Past Abuse, Post-Break Up, References to Abuse, Yoonseok are completely sober, abusive childhood
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-03
Updated: 2016-01-03
Packaged: 2018-05-11 07:48:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,699
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5619202
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sugodemic/pseuds/sugodemic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>(i'm afraid, afraid, afraid)</p><p>hoseok lives like he's a long row of dominoes locked in a room, either upright or fallen with no in between. yoongi is the only one whose hands are steady enough to arrange him, but hoseok is the only one who's worth it enough to be who he steadies them for.</p>
            </blockquote>





	if i let you go of your hand, you’ll fly away, you’ll shatter

**Author's Note:**

> aka: 4,700 words of “i started this on christmas eve and it’s pretty sad i’m only finishing it now (and why do my fics keep getting longer???)”

Yoongi gets five calls on Christmas. Seokjin calls at the strike of twelve, since he goes through their circle of friends by age, and Namjoon calls right after. (For the record, he was never that prompt before they started dating.) At around sixish in the morning, he's "blessed" by Jimin and Taehyung and Jeongguk's Jingle Bell Rock quartet/serenade/acapella. They all say a different thing. And then it's Seokjin again, asking if he's going to see his family this year, and if wants him to bring Yoongi anything from the party, proceeding to rattle off a list of every dish he's bringing. Yoongi said no. To both.

Christmas is just another day of the year without someone to make it a big deal.

It's eleven at night and Yoongi is sleeped out and staring at the ceiling, laptop hot on his chest but he can't be damned about the blocked vents, when he gets a call from Hobi. _Hoseok,_ he amends, rolling his lower lip under his teeth. They're no longer swollen with morning kisses, and he wishes he could remember the taste of their mouths together. His alone tastes like potato chips straight from the bag and doused in hot sauce, Yoongi's favorite lazy snack. Hoseok's would taste like candy canes and eggnog and those fried onions that they're supposed to use for green bean casserole.

Yoongi's other hand grips the covers, squeezes them like he would Hoseok, all fingernails and possessive scratches and long nights, until Hoseok releases a breath on the other end of the line and the strength tremors out of him. "Are you okay?" Yoongi doesn't know why he answered like that, why it's the first thing he said, but when you haven't heard from someone for eighteen days when you usually hear from them every three hours, maybe it's okay to expect that's the only reason they'd call.

"Yoongi. Hey. Hey, yeah, I'm..." Hoseok's voice shrinks, fuzzed by Christmas music and Seokjin's windshield wiper laugh passing by and Jeongguk belting out a high note and someone (Namjoon) dropping their fork. "Merry Christmas. Everything's perfect. What about you? What are you doing?"

Yoongi rolls onto his stomach. "Being tired of sleeping."

"Oh. Damn." Hoseok tries to smile. Yoongi can tell through the phone. "That's serious." There's a gap in the conversation. A black hole in Hoseok's voice that sucks something vital out of Yoongi. "Are you with anyone?"

Yoongi actually laughs at that. "No, of course not." And if they'd broken up on different terms, maybe Yoongi would cringe from saying that, maybe he'd have some pride, maybe he wouldn't have added that to the end. Maybe he would've dyed his hair back because it was Hoseok's idea to dye it green in the spirit of Christmas, before they broke up, before his roots started growing. But he doesn't. It's a wilted laugh, but it comes, and it's there, and it's echoing into his empty apartment.

"Everyone—and Seokjin—is wasted. Wanna play designated driver?"

He's just found his Chistmas present to everyone.

"Yeah."  Yoongi rolls out of bed, just barely catching the ground with his bare feet. Goes to find his scarf on the back of an armchair, right where he left it. Hoseok stays on the other end, breathing, just breathing, and Yoongi wonders for a long moment if he's forgotten he's on the phone.

"You didn't open the coat closet," Hoseok says once Yoongi grabs his keys. "Christ, Yoongi. Take a jacket. It's cold. And don't forget your gloves."

Yoongi bites his lip. Knows he shouldn't say it, but he wants it so bad. He wants this. He wants Hoseok to slip up one more time. "Which jacket?" he rasps, quiet, really quiet, hoping that Hoseok won't know what he's doing.

"The charcoal one. With the zip-off hood. But wear the hood. The one we got at—"

The word _we_  hangs between them like a noose.

Hoseok loops it over his neck and hangs up.

 

❖

   
Yoongi gets a whiff of the cinnamon airspray that always makes his head pound. Hoseok's house is decked out, with a homemade wreath with blinking lights woven in and just enough glitter, and the disgustingly cheerful mat in front of the door (garnished with fresh mud from Taehyung's boots, which makes the mat read "HO"). And (low-hanging) Christmas lights and garland on the roof that strangles Yoongi's heart. How did Hoseok do it with his acrophobia? Who did it for him? Yoongi wonders what Christmas tree he chose, if he got the tallest and fattest one without him there to be practical. If he managed getting it home without Yoongi's truck, or if he got Seokjin with his Mom Car. Speak of the devil, Seokjin opens the door, an easy smile on his face, a little glassy-eyed and it works for him, makes him seem a little more cool in the stereotypical way, but it subsides quick enough once he shifts his attention from the top of Yoongi's blue snapback to his face.

Damn the height difference.

Seokjin leans into the doorway and closes the door behind him, earning a jingle from the antlers tangled in his hair. "I been drinkin'." There's wine on his breath and his lips are red, like Namjoon's just pushed him into a corner and made out with him. "What're you doing here?"

"I'm your new designated driver. Enjoy your Christmas present."

Seokjin runs his tongue over his upper lip, tilts his head, flicks a piece of confetti off his sweater. It's the candy cane vender one, white with packaged candy canes glued on, and Seokjin peels one off to offer Yoongi. He takes it, resolving to hook it on Hoseok's Christmas tree when no one's looking. It's always either Seokjin or Yoongi as the designated driver. The sober ones. Seokjin only drinks in the comfort of his home (or in situations that are like home) with the comfort of warm meals, and never for the purpose of getting drunk. Yoongi only drinks (drank) for the purpose of getting wasted, none of that flimsy stuff Seokjin likes, and hasn't done it since he graduated from college and the stress of finals and exams left him. (And since he got with Hoseok, who was pitiful after one shot.)

"I hope it's not the only one I get." And there's a haze to his smile and a husk in his voice and Yoongi knows there's more meaning in those words than he'll share and that what he wants—what both of them want—isn't something that can be bought.

"You meant for this to happen," Yoongi says, more resignation and a statement than anything, leaning more on one leg and crossing his arms. His face is stiff and he can't remember the last time he smiled but he's coming pretty close right now. He doesn't like when he smiles, doesn't like the way his eyes melt, the way the light hits his eyes and reflects on everything like light on glass. "Don't meddle."

"I'm drunk."

"Yeah. You weren't drunk when you decided to—"

"Shit. I forgot I'm babysitting Nams and—" He fumbles with the knob. "Is this _locked_?"

On the other side of the door, Jeongguk cackles like a gremlin, Taehyung's laugh is (as usual) reminiscent of Santa, and Jimin's obviously an elf.

Hoseok's yelling Namjoon's name from the kitchen (Yoongi hates that he can still tell where Hoseok is, just by the way his voice travels when he's in front of the door) when Yoongi lets them know who they've locked out. Everyone shuts up with a few huffs of delayed laughter, then Jimin has the sense to open the door, engulfing Yoongi in a hug. Because Yoongi's the shortest (by two inches) and has been for years. He smells like the eggnog with the bourbon in it and cinnamon and nutmeg and he's dyed his hair red and is wearing a green sweater, as per his seasonal (dare) tradition. He's all babbling and giggling and Jeongguk, who can have twice the amount of drinks as Jimin and only have broodiness and sporadic laughter at nothing to show for it, hooks an arm around Jimin's waist while Jimin throws his legs around Yoongi's and unconsciously but literally _lifts_ Jimin out of the doorway (and since Jimin still has a death grip around his—ahem— _favorite_  hyung, Yoongi goes right with him).

Jeongguk lets Jimin down and Jimin struggles to find surface with his little feet and Yoongi sees it coming at the same time Hoseok pops out of the kitchen and he loses all the strength in his body when he needs it the most (not that one pretty damn good self-cooked meal and then instant ramen every other hour of the day does much for his strength). He knows they're both going down, so he kind of gives Hoseok this quirk of the eyebrow that says he's resigned to his fate (because Jimin is, once again, wearing those goddamn slippery socks instead of shoes and this is, once again, Hoseok's disgustingly immaculate hardwood floor), and he's tangled limb-by-limb with Jimin two seconds later. Despite himself, without thinking about it, he drapes a hand over the back of Jimin's head before they fall (because, as a responsible adult, concussions are something he thinks about in crisis situations) and gets his fingers crushed.

And hates himself for it.

Jeongguk's monstrous reflexes can't win over the haze of alcohol, so his hand only goes out once Jimin's groaning on the floor, choking on Yoongi's scarf, and Yoongi's made that squawking sound he always does when he's complaining. It would be hilarious, fit for comedy, the fact that Jeongguk, the ever-present boyfriend that he is, grabs on nothing a good ten seconds after they fell, and Taehyung's cracking up, and Seokjin's decided that Namjoon being unsupervised is more important than the usual antics (Yoongi usually agrees, when he's not involved), so he trips over the two of them and Mom Jogs into the kitchen, but not after shouldering Hoseok out of the way.

"Oh my god, hyung, oh my god—" Jimin's voice quivers. "I didn't mean to—" He catches more of Yoongi's scarf in his mouth and whines. "I can't do anything right—"

Code Red.

"God, Jimin, no, it's fine," Hoseok squeaks, and everyone chimes their delayed assent. Even Seokjin, having obviously come up from a kiss with Namjoon. (Yoongi isn't sure if Namjoon's porn-worthy "Yeah" of agreement is meant for Seokjin or Jimin but it definitely had Seokjin in mind.) Almost everyone. "Fucking _say_  something, Yoongi."

"Please say something," Jeongguk mutters under his breath.

Yoongi rolls off Jimin and onto his back and stares up at the ceiling. Wonders how Hoseok put garland up there with his fear of heights without Yoongi to do it for him. Last Christmas, Hoseok had stayed at the ladder, hand planted firmly on Yoongi's ass both in support and as a hint of later's reward. "I think I fractured a goddamn knuckle."

He also makes Jimin cry in record time.

 

❖

 

"I actually _did_  get you a gift, y'know," Namjoon says, hooking his arm around Yoongi's shoulders for the third time. He shrugs him off, also for the third time, and Namjoon places his head in Yoongi's lap instead and stretches out on the leather couch. From the thigh down, Namjoon's legs drape off the edge. Yoongi's sure that Seokjin's in the bathroom downing his glass of wine in one gulp like an overworked mother glad someone else is babysitting.

"You as in Seokjin?" Yoongi rushes to ask before Namjoon remembers he's smart and starts looking for his keys.

Namjoon screws up his face, does that dorky smile that makes his eyes crinkle. "No. Jeez. I got you a Rudolph nightlight but I didn't wrap it. And I put it together myself."

"Oh?" Yoongi drawls, much like an adult who's trying their damnedest to seem interested in the musings of a kid (the kind of kid that likes looking up at the moon and the stars and asking irrelevant, hard questions about the afterlife).

"Yeah! Yeah, I'll find it for you." Namjoon goes cross-eyed, playing with Yoongi's fingers and squishy palms, and Yoongi just stares at the Christmas tree. God, he can't really breathe. It's small and full and sinking under the weight of the star and scarcely decorated and that makes Yoongi's heart ache in a tangible and pulsing sort of way, some sort of alien that hasn't burst from its egg, because it's everything Yoongi wants in a tree and everything Hoseok doesn't. It's what Yoongi would point out (second after an artificial tree) and Hoseok would just laugh, tell him he should get into the Christmas spirit, go for the one that would get closest to touching the roof, and they'd bicker for hours, hand-in-hand. And the tree actually smells _good_ this year, doesn't smell like extra work and hassle, and the house seems bigger than it should when he thought it'd be the opposite, with everyone here.

Taehyung moves from sitting on the shedding Santa hat rug in front of the unmounted flat screen television and gives up on waiting for a seat to become available. Shoves his own Santa hat around the top of Yoongi's snapback and crawls flat on top of Jimin where he's sprawled out on the tear-soaked armchair. He tucks his head into his hair and starts drooling in it a few seconds later. Leaned against the wall, mirroring Seokjin at the kitchen table, Jeongguk downs another glass of wine. Glares a little in Yoongi's direction before returning his attention to Jimin.

Hoseok emerges from the kitchen and Yoongi slips out from under Namjoon, pulls his hand free after a bit of effort. A (happy) drunk Namjoon is either needy or horny but usually not both at the same time. Lucky for Yoongi. Seokjin takes his spot soon enough anyway, stroking Namjoon's hair while a rap remix of Santa Baby (don't ask) thrums from the speakers, and looking just drunk enough to not give a shit.

"Finally found a place for the keys." Hoseok's voice is startlingly steady and it doesn't waver like ocean waves the way it usually does. "In the freezer, of course." They found a long time ago that drunks, even lucid (but slow as fuck) Jeongguk and Seokjin, don't look in the freezer. "But I still have a turkey in there so I put them in the ice tray. I ended up not making the turkey. It just—didn't feel the same. Didn't feel right." His fingers are stiff and the light hits his eyes in a weird way, like he's an animal, a cornered animal. And his lips are chapped in a way they usually aren't, like he's been chewing them to bleeding without Yoongi's lips to catch them, without the softness of his own to sand away the rough edges. "I wouldn't be able to eat all the leftovers. So I didn't make it. Thanks, Yoongi. For coming. I know it's Christmas and—"

He turns an  _I'm always here_  into a "My phone's always on. And if it's you, I won't ignore your call, so. It's fine." He turns an _I'm glad I got to see you_  into a "You look good." And he does. All tight jeans and ugly Christmas sweater and parted black hair and fuzzy socks (with the little grips on the bottom, unlike Jimin).

"You look good, too," he says, but his eyes whisper:  _You look good without me and it hurts because I didn't think that's how we'd turn out._

"Thanks." _It hurts when something so special doesn't affect you as much as you think it should once it's gone._  

He brushes past Hoseok and back into the living room. Cheesy Hallmark Christmas movies play on television (Hoseok always says they're just for seasonal ambiance, but Yoongi openly enjoys them, and Hoseok's sort of in the closet). Jeongguk has his head down, pressed against the table, and Taehyung and Jimin haven't moved an inch.

"Is it legal to put Jimin in the back of the truck?" Yoongi asks. (Jimin always gets pukey.)

"Probably. Where's Namjoon?" Hoseok's voice is louder and closer than it should be and Seokjin's head snaps up. He looks down into his empty lap just as Hoseok and Yoongi take to the kitchen to see if maybe, by some divine blessing, Namjoon is—

Not plugging something into the outlet.

When Yoongi opens his eyes again after blinking, it's dark. He stumbles, loses his Santa hat in the punch bowl, and Hoseok stops in his tracks, quiet in a way that's unlike him, in a way that makes Yoongi turn back. It's Hoseok who catches his scarf and pulls hard, loses it somewhere between Seokjin's pecan pie and the sorbet, and weaves him in and then weaves into him. Grips impossibly hard at Yoongi's cardigan (and Yoongi can feel his fingernails on his ribs in a way he hasn't since they last shared a bed) and just—lets Yoongi feel him shake.

 

❖

There’s something about shivering beside someone like Hoseok and knowing you, for once and maybe never again, feel the same thing as him.

The lights spark. On, then off, and on again, and Hoseok’s hand is tightening around Yoongi’s wrist. He's not usually scared of the dark—not to this extent. Other things take the priority of his nerves. There are some things he just laughs and bluffs through until he can breathe again. The electricity sticks this time, and under the glare of resuscitated Christmas lights and bruised tradition, Hoseok's breath comes in puffs. Sandpaper snowflakes burn down Yoongi's throat. Swirl in his lungs, making their own little blizzard with his heartbeat.

Hoseok's grip goes limp and his touch drifts to Yoongi's hand, kneading away the cold Yoongi's always been so susceptible to. It's rough enough to be platonic but long enough to have meaning. To silently say, _Told you to bring gloves._  "What would I do without you?"

Yoongi pulls away and forward, killing the charge between them. Crouches easily in his highly Christmas-y outfit of gray sweats and sneakers, a cardigan and a blue snapback, and closes the power box. He drops the screwdriver back into the toolbox, purses his lips, then parts them with a little smack. Licks away the frost chapping his lips before standing up and rasping, "You'd call a mechanic."

Then he turns and catches the look on Hoseok's face, knows that the smile left once the lights went off and no one could see. "I just wanted things to be perfect. I just wanted things to be perfect, Yoongi. I just wanted it to be perfect and I wanted it to be perfect without you."

It's Yoongi's turn to thumb Hoseok's wrist under his sweater and lose himself in his hummingbird pulse, a song that he always wants to hear in his headphones just like he always wants to hear Hoseok breathing as his alarm (because it's honestly the only thing he's sure he'd wake up for). And he doesn't know if he's going too far or what too far is, but he knows that he's the only one who can calm Hoseok to the point of tears. The only one who can make him feel safe enough to cry. The only one who tells him it's not his fault if he feels alone while they're together.

"It's been a shit year," Yoongi says. "No one expects anything to be perfect. Especially not you."

He doesn't even remember how much happened. How much they went through. The crispness of the memories fold into each other but the emotions stay untouched. Pain and pleasure hold hands. Not really pleasure, not really pain, just the feeling of living that he doesn't have without Hoseok. They were together because they pushed each other to live life and be alive in ways no one else could. And they broke up because they were scared of life, because it got too much and they were defensive and scared of being pushed.

"I have control over this. This party. This fucking disaster of a party—"

Yoongi curls his pinky finger around three of Hoseok's and Hoseok shakes his hand down and into Yoongi's hand. He sews their fingers together. Yoongi's numb without Hoseok, always going through the motions, always good at survival, always ready to retaliate, but when Hoseok pinches Yoongi with his fingernails, digging in so tight, trying to get under his skin and join them, he feels the pain, he feels alive, feels his pulse burning. When they're together,  Yoongi aches, Yoongi breathes, Yoongi has the strength to coddle the hurt child inside that he neglected for years, stuck in survival mode.

Healing waits for survival. Living waits for healing.

And maybe it sounds simple and maybe it doesn't sound like much and maybe it's not as dramatic or poetic, maybe it's damn simple, but Hoseok doesn't know how to help himself and ask for help without Yoongi. Doesn't know how to keep everything from building and building to the point of physical symptoms. Doesn't know how to keep the different sides of himself from infecting each other like a disease without Yoongi's eye contact that says the world. They choose to be together, not because they wouldn't be okay without each other—they're grown and that means they've learned how to be miserable and still functional—but because breathing is a little easier when they're holding hands, and everything, every little bit, counts.

"I didn't mean it, Yoongi. You know that." It's not an assumption but a statement that comes from years of breathing the same air.

Their breakup wasn't anything spectacular. Wasn't like two souls being ripped apart. Wasn't like an exorcism. It was more like a quietly closed door because someone's sleeping. It was more like coming in from a cold day expecting artificial warmth and remembering your workplace won't turn on the heat for shit. It didn't end with a fight; it ended because they stopped talking and because they were scared, scared to hang off the cliff together in case they pulled each other down.

"You meant it in the moment," Yoongi says. "You're the one who said it. It came out of your mouth and that means a part of you meant it."

Hoseok lets go. "And the fact that you said that means a part of you was hurt by it?"

Yoongi's heart trips up and races, so fast that he can't inhale properly, that his veins shiver and he takes a step back. Scared of himself, scared for Hoseok and scared of him, about to boil over. Because how the fuck—how in the _world_  could _anyone_ think it didn't hurt? That it didn't rip him clean out of his own skin and leave him as a mass of painfully exposed nerve endings? It hurts more than any breakup—people assuming he doesn't care and never asking him, never letting him do _anything_ about it, never letting him have the tiniest speck of control over his life. Enough to help him feel safe.

Hoseok lurches for Yoongi with this manic look in his eyes, lost and hollowed out and desperate and selfish and victimizing himself, an unspoken _You can't leave me_  tangled on his tongue and in his throat, suffocating him. A selfish, blind plea that only sees Yoongi turning to walk away and not the jerkiness of his movements. Not that he has to tear himself apart from Hoseok. It's eerily similar to when Yoongi turned and walked out of the door except Hoseok didn't move. Hoseok was frozen.

Yoongi struggles to process his anger. Struggles to process pain and hurt and the vulnerability he hates, the vulnerability he swore not to feel again after leaving his parents. He doesn't want to hit Hoseok. Anything but that. Anything but stooping down to the level of his father. He goes stiff, building, building, stacking on top of himself, because he can't ever have a _first time_  like his father did because he can't trust himself to make it the last time. When he's angry, he runs. Because that's the only way he could escape—leaving, leaving his mother to nurse her bruises, leaving his father to control his life by destroying it, leaving his dog one day to writhe on the floor with an imprint from his father's boot—and maybe things aren't the same anymore but he's still _there_  and he still only associates anger with hitting or running and when he's mad he needs to get out.

"Let go."

Hoseok drops his hand and takes a step back because there's so _much_  inside of Yoongi that he can't process. He drowns from the inside, shaking and pacing and shedding layers until the air is biting him and his cheeks are raw and he's crying, shoving down the front of his cap until his temples ache. He hates that. This. Hates when people have control over how he feels, hates when they make him weak and vulnerable and—

"Tell me if it hurt, Yoongi."

"You think that because I left without a fuss it didn't—" Yoongi swallows. Hard. And it's like rocks going down his throat. Like drowning on sand. "I respect you, Hoseok. So I listen. It doesn't have anything to do with you wanting me to say I didn't want to go."

"I shouldn't always have to ask you. Tell me directly." Hoseok's voice is so steady. He sounds okay. Okay and over it and Yoongi hates when he does that. Hates Jung Hoseok. Hates how he is equal parts in your face and passive aggressive, needing constant attention towards his cues, so fucking needy and fragile around all his layers. Hoseok lives like he's a long row of dominoes locked in a room, either upright or fallen with no in between. Yoongi is the only one whose hands are steady enough to arrange him, but Hoseok is the only one who's worth it enough to be who he steadies them for.

He can't do it. His hands are shaking and they're shaking bad and he's only admitting it now.

"Of course it _hurt_ , Hobi," Yoongi says, sobbing down on the words until he has to strain the rest of them out, bending over as their force slams into him, enough that he thinks he'll vomit onto the snow.

Hoseok reaches out for Yoongi but doesn't touch. Gives him the option to bridge the gap. Lets him be in control (even though Yoongi can see in Hoseok's eyes that he wants nothing more than to push Yoongi into his chest and zip up his coat around them). Yoongi stumbles backwards, freezes, tries to pick up the pieces of himself as they fall. He presses the heel of his hand into his eyes, needing to stop the tears, clawing at his cheeks because it won't stop, it won't end, and the pain from the scraping of his fingernails can't even _compare_ —

Hoseok puts a hand to Yoongi's, a light touch that doesn't even come close to the harshness of the wind, not controlling but _there_  because Yoongi's hurting himself and that's not okay (and he's hurt and he's hurting and he's out of control). It's the first time Yoongi's raised his voice around Hoseok, the first time he's laid everything out without languid, calculated words, the first time he's cried in front of Hoseok. "Is there any way I can help you feel safe?" He knows. Knows that what frustrates Yoongi the most is not being able to make himself feel secure. That it's like breaking his promise to himself once he became an adult.

Yoongi wants to lean forward but he bites down on his lip instead. He wants to draw blood but it's Hoseok's finger that coaxes his lip out from between his teeth.

This time, he does push forward. He does press his forehead into Hoseok's chest and stay there. He does say,  "Let me lean on you," without filtering his thoughts.

He does realize that there's comfort in not always having to hold up your own weight.

**Author's Note:**

> [tumblr](http://sugodemic.tumblr.com/post/136505202190/if-i-let-you-go-of-your-hand-youll-fly-away)


End file.
